As many parents are now set with the exciting challenge of temporarily home schooling their little ones, we thought we'd put together a blog post on some super-handy tips and resources to help you along the way.

Our New Face Recruiter Emma has some excellent tips and advice for navigating home schooling with the help of the wonderful Orchard Toys who have some incredible resources to aid home schooling whilst keeping it super fun and engaging for children!

Here at Sandra Reynolds we are absolutely loving starting our day with Joe Wicks' (The Body Coach) P.E. Lessons, it's a great way to get the children up and ready for a set time and to keep a routine.

Joe Wicks' P.E lessons are Monday - Friday at 9am, see you there!

Emma Says : "As with everything in my life, I like a plan! So I have ensured that the night before, we have a lesson plan in place for the following day and have all the resources needed. We include break times (using a bell just like school!!!) and set lunch breaks when the children can go outside to play in the garden.  We do bite sized chunks of academic work in the morning when we have more energy and save fun project based work for the afternoon when it’s easier to be creative."

T O P T I P S -
1. Structure and Routine: Try and keep your weekday routine as normal as possible, aim to be up and dressed the same time everyday. (Our team says getting up for P.E with Joe is definitely helping them get the kids ready in the morning)
2. Make a timetable: Great for both you and your children, a timetable helps to structure your day, make sure to break up the lessons with lots of breaks and aim to finish by the same time everyday!
3. Resources: Try to keep the day interesting and varied. This is where Orchard Toys comes in! They have loads of incredible free downloads for everything from Maths, to Cooking! Find their resources here. They also have some great options for 'Home Learnings Packs' which are tailored to your children's age from Pre-School up to Key Stage 2.

And for the slightly older children - Our MD Tessa is working with her two children aged 9 (Year 7) & 15 yrs (Year 11) as well as a friend who is isolating with them who is 11 yrs and in Year 7. Tessa says : "We are all really enjoying home schooling - planning our timetables and all sitting down to do our work together. However I am conscious this is early days and may not be saying the same in a few weeks! My eldest daughter should have been taking her GCSE's this summer so it can be difficult to keep her motivated to carry on revising now she knows they are not happening but she is doing a really good job so far. The best resource I have is Twinkl who have just opened up all their resources to parents completely free. They have everything you need for every subject. I was involved in a prep school a few years ago and we used to pay a lot of money per year for this resource - it's brilliant! www.twinkl.co.uk"

And just because we all need to hear it right now "You're doing great!"

production, photography & creative direction: www.eastcoastlocations.co.uk

models: www.sandrareynoldsjuniors.co.uk (of course!!)